Location: Zoom Date: Friday, 19th June Company/Project: Kraken Role: Director of Business Development

The very early believers in Bitcoin tended to fall into two camps, the Libertarians who were drawn to the censorship resistance & self-sovereignty of Bitcoin and the tech-savvy developers who saw a new experimental technology that was the first to truly offer a distributed & decentralised digital money.

As Bitcoin has gained in value, it too has grown to appeal to audiences that don’t necessarily fit into these two camps. Fewer tech-savvy people have come to Bitcoin for ‘number go up’ more than the censorship resistance and decentralisation.

For these people, coming into Bitcoin can be hostile and confusing. The community is understandably frosty to those not willing to learn about the importance of holding their own keys, protecting their privacy and being self-sovereign and the software can be confusing and unintuitive.

For newcomers running a node is difficult, holding your private keys daunting and interacting with the community scary. So, improving both the UX and marketing of Bitcoin is key to attracting less technical people to the space.

In this interview, I talk to Dan Held the Director of Business Development at Kraken. We discuss the importance of easy user experience, how Bitcoin can be a daunting experience, if newcomers should hold their private keys and why marketing matters.